Partners in Crime
by Sunlight through Leaves
Summary: After their encounter at the chuunin exam, Kakashi and Iruka can barely stand to be in the same room. Can they survive each other when Tsunade sends them on a two month mission to Mist? And what happens when people around them start disappearing? Kakairu
1. Chapter 1

New multi-chapter story!

characters (c) Masashi Kishimoto

OOOOOOOOOOOO

"Mist Village?" Kakashi cocked his head to one side as he took the scroll from the godaime. "What do they want with us?"

"I'm not sure." Tsunade laced her fingers together, "But the whole mission request stinks to high heaven."

"You think so?"

"When was the last time you can remember a village requesting an independent review of their training program?" She snorted. "When was the last time you can remember Mist Village requesting anything from us?"

"Maa, point taken." Kakashi carefully rolled the scroll closed. "You want me to be careful."

"Are you ever not careful? I want you to be more than careful; I want you to be on your guard." She rose to her feet. "I want you to find out why they're requesting something like this."

"I'll be on my way, then." Kakashi pocketed the scroll.

"Not on your own."

"Eh? I thought you somewhat were worried about this being a trap."

"I am." Tsunade strode to the window and rested her hands on sill. "But I'm also worried that it's legitimate. And you're not exactly the soul of tact and diplomacy."

Kakashi clutched his hand to his heart. "Maa, I am deeply wounded."

Tsunade punched his arm, and he was grateful that she hadn't put all of her considerable force behind it.

"So who's joining me?" A tentative knock followed right on the heels of his statement. "Well, whoever it is, they've got perfect timing."

Tsunade rolled her eyes. "Enter."

"Iruka-san."

"Kakashi-san." Iruka didn't even completely cross the threshold, pausing with one hand on the doorknob, and was clearly in full preparation to flee. "I'm sorry; I can come back."

Tsunade gaped at the murderous intent rolling off the two shinobi and leaned over to Shizune, who was currently huddled in the corner. "Did something happen that I'm not aware of?"

"It must have been before we got here…."

Iruka's narrowed gaze finally slid off Kakashi. "You wanted to see me, Tsunade-sama?"

"Yes, I have a mission for you." Iruka looked puzzled when she didn't hold out a scroll for him. "Kakashi has the information."

"He's the one who's coming on this mission?" Kakashi snapped.

"Oh, I'm _sorry_. Is this lowly chuunin going to be a burden to you?"

"Well, everything would certainly be easier without your input."

"Do you really still think that I wasn't right about the exam? Do you realize how much wouldn't have happened if you hadn't insisted on them participating?" Iruka shot back, clamped his mouth shut and blushed furiously.

Kakashi jerked like he'd been slapped.

Tsunade slammed her hands down on the desk, ignoring the ominous crack it emitted. "Enough! You are on this mission because I assigned you to it, so you two need to get over whatever this thing is between you and start acting like a couple of teammates."

The two men glared at each other.

"That's an order." She planted her hands on her hips. "Or am I going to have to beat some sense into you?"

"Ah, no, Tsunade-sama, that's fine."

"Maaa, I think we can manage that." Kakashi spoke in the same breath.

"Good. You need to leave in the morning." Neither man budged. "That was a dismissal." They both looked like they wanted to argue with her about something. "Get _out_ of my office."

Asuma and Kurenai dodged the pair as they stepped through the door. Iruka'd held back to let Kakashi go first, but the dark look on his face suggested that the gesture was intended to be sarcastic. Asuma waited until the door slammed shut, and then jerked a thumb at the spot where the other two had been. "Did you really have those two in the same room?"

"I was not aware that was a taboo around here. What is the story behind all of that?"

Asuma sighed. "There was a little bit of an altercation before the last chuunin exam. We all – Kakashi, Kurenai and me – nominated our students for the exam. They were all just fresh out of school and barely had enough missions under their belts. Iruka objected, very vocally."

"Well, they'd all been his students, and, in his defense, they hadn't grown all that much from when he knew them, and he didn't think they were ready. We understood where he was coming from. We didn't agree with him, but we at least got the reasoning. Kakashi, on the other hand…" Kurenai trailed off.

"Not being the king of tactfulness." Tsunade chimed in.

"Yeah. He made a 'joke'" Asuma accented the words by raising his fingers and drawing quotes in the air. "About how the kids could use some pain in their lives and crushing them would be fun."

"Which, of course, just triggered Iruka's protective nature."

"And then Kakashi basically told Iruka to fuck off." He shrugged. "He acted like a jounin on a power trip and treated Iruka like a brand-new chuunin with no experience.

"I mean, Iruka does a lot of teaching, but he's a good person and a good shinobi, and he just wanted to do the right thing. And then, well, the exam was such a fiasco. Out of those from his class, Hinata almost died, and so did Sakura and Naruto when they went up against Gaara, and then Sasuke…."

"Orochimaru would have gotten to Sasuke no matter what." Tsunade pointed out. "But still…" She sighed heavily. No matter what had happened to them in the past, Iruka and Kakashi were the best available pair for the mission. "Do you think there's any chance they'll make it to Mist Village before killing each other?"

Kurenai and Asuma silently shook their heads.

"Well, shit."

OOOOOOOOOOO

Iruka groaned and dropped his head back on the edge of the bath. The water was practically scalding, but he planned to spend several hours in it soaking out the general frustration of the day, and he really hated to refill it. As it was, he had both arms and one leg draped over the rim of the tub.

He was grateful for the hot water – he'd been on the verge of killing Kakashi only a few minutes after leaving the hokage's office. The man hadn't said a single word to him, forcing him to ask to see the mission scroll.

Kakashi'd tossed it over his shoulder unceremoniously, and Iruka'd had to practically dive to catch it.

Once he'd straightened and dusted dirt off the one knee that hit the floor, Kakashi'd vanished.

In hindsight, Iruka realized that he probably should have found the jounin and returned the mission scroll, but if Kakashi'd been willing to leave it with him, Iruka sure as hell wasn't going to go out of his way to track him down.

He stretched, splashing water across the tile floor and sunk lower in the bath, until the water came level with his scar. "Mist Village, huh?"

The mission duration was two months, effectively filling his summer break from the Academy. The Academy teachers were not actually required to take missions – partially because the hokages and village council always believed that the teachers should focus on education and partially because good educators were hard to replace and the average life span of a shinobi wasn't all that long.

Most supplemented their income by taking missions because, even though the pay for chuunin missions was abysmal, the pay for chuunin teachers was worse. Iruka survived during the school year by working double shifts at the mission desk around his classes.

During the summer, a few lucky teachers managed to get tagged for remedial classes. Though the classes themselves were filled with mind-numbingly painful repetition in order to get some of the slower students up to the level of the rest of the class, the assignment still meant a guaranteed paycheck. Iruka rarely got picked up for that job, so his summer had typically been spent in the past taking a scattering of C and D rank missions and working the mission desk.

Contrary to the other teachers, Iruka rather enjoyed working at the mission desk. The paperwork he had to take care of didn't fill the entire time, so he spent a large portion of his hours reworking his syllabus and drafting up new teaching strategies for his class.

A single two-month mission, regardless of the rank – _someone_ had strategically blacked out the rank label on the top of the mission scroll – would pay much more than he usually made, especially if he was careful with the per diem.

The water temperature had finally cooled, and he unhooked his leg from the edge of the bath and dropped it in the water, scratching idly at the scar across his nose. With this mission during the summer, he might even be able to cut back on the number of hours he worked during the school year.

The real question was, whether or not putting up with Kakashi was worth it.

He'd managed to avoid the other man since the incident at the exam. Even at the mission desk, Kakashi purposefully stood in longer lines in order to be waited up by any of the other shinobi working the desk. And Iruka was overwhelmingly grateful for it, since he wasn't sure he would have been able to hold his tongue, but he was also absolutely certain that the infamous jounin could make his life a living hell, if he didn't just up and kill him.

He sighed and submerged completely under the water. Whatever rank the mission was, the pay was worth it, and he was just going to have to be civil with Kakashi and prove to the other man that he was, in fact, a capable shinobi.

OOOOOOOOOOO

Kakashi dropped cross-legged onto his bed and leaned against the wall. Icha Icha lay open next to him, but he hadn't turned the page in several minutes.

Only the fear of getting his ass handed to him had kept him from storming back into Tsunade's office and demanding a change in the mission.

He'd looked up Iruka's information. The chuunin had completed a couple of A rank missions, but the card was mostly filled with Cs and Ds, and the number of missions was vastly below the average for most chuunin.

He ran his fingers through his hair, spiking it up. No matter what their past was, Iruka was going to be a comrade, which meant that Kakashi would have to do everything in his power to bring him safely home.

Of course, it wouldn't have frustrated him as much if he'd been teamed with a competent shinobi instead of this teacher.

Kakashi had a sneaking suspicion that he was going to spend a large percentage of this mission saving the chuunin's ass.

OOOOOOOOOOO

Thanks so much for reading! I hope it's interesting so far.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2 - Enjoy!

OOOOOOOOO

Kakashi grinned behind his mask at the furious expression plastered across Iruka's face. So what if the mission document said they were supposed to leave at dawn? He was only three or four hours late.

"It's one in the afternoon!" Iruka fumed as he sauntered up.

Make that seven hours. He hadn't intended to be quite that late – even an hour or two would have driven the chuunin up the wall – but must have lost track of time in front of the memorial stone.

He passed Iruka at a leisurely pace, not bothering to make eye contact or answer the accusation. Once he'd gotten several meters ahead, he turned around, "Well, are you coming? If we don't start now, we'll be late."

For several seconds, he was almost positive that Iruka was going to haul off and punch him, but the chuunin seemed to manage to resist the urge, hefted his pack higher on his shoulders and muttered darkly under his breath as he caught up with Kakashi.

OOOOOOOOOOO

Kakashi dropped lightly to the ground and straightened, surveying the overgrown clearing. He would have preferred to sleep on one of the wide branches of the trees that hung heavy overhead, but since the mission was supposedly all in good faith from Konoha's perspective, he figured that they'd be better off trying not to look too sneaky.

The chuunin he'd been saddled with touched down behind him, and Kakashi wondered evilly if sheer pride alone kept him standing. He'd pushed the pace faster than even he could handle for more than one day, but the sore muscles were certainly worth it since he got to hear the Iruka scrambling and slipping behind him as he tried to keep up.

His subconscious realized that he was tormenting Iruka for no good reason, but the teacher just rubbed him the wrong way. He had far more experience as a shinobi, so where did Iruka get off telling him how to train his team? The man was naïve, insulting, and infuriating, and Kakashi intended to exact revenge for it during this mission.

It took an act of sheer will to keep from planting his hands on his thighs, hanging his head between his knees and gasping for air, but Iruka pressed his lips together and managed to keep the panting to a minimum. Kakashi'd set that pace either to enforce the fact that he was superior to Iruka or just to be an ass.

Or both.

After the overwhelming fire in his lungs died down, Iruka unbuckled his pack, set it on the ground, and followed it down as slowly as he could manage. He might be arrogant enough to not let Kakashi see him gasping, but he certainly wasn't childish enough to get into a standing contest with the jounin.

A short search through his pack located his rations, and he peeled the wrapper back and gnawed on the corner, blatantly ignoring his campsite companion. One more day and they'd be in Mist, and he would have a job to do and other people to spend time with.

He could survive Kakashi-_san_ for another day.

OOOOOOOOOOO

Iruka craned his neck as he stared up at the massive structure that made up Mist Village's front gates. Unlike Konoha's, which remained open from shortly after dawn until dusk, the ebony gates were closed and barred and reached several stories towards the sky. The ground directly in front of them was choked with weeds and scrub brush, and Iruka spotted a small tree poking out at the very base of the enormous doors. From the looks of things, the gates hadn't been opened in tens of years.

A bald shinobi slouched against the enormous uprights, his dark eyes focused on the interlopers that had just appeared. His hand dropped to the weapon strapped to his thigh. "Who are you?"

"Hatake Kakashi of Konoha. Here on a mission requested by the Kirikage."

The eyes flicked up to Iruka, who's lips had pressed into a fine line both to suppress the urge to grab his side and massage the stitch in his muscles away and to keep from snapping at Kakashi. "Umino Iruka. I'm on this mission as well."

He thought he saw the guard's eyebrow twitch, but the other man turned his attention back to Kakashi. "Identification?"

A quick search produced their IDs, which were taken, examined and handed back. "Wait here." The guard pressed against a slightly discolored portion of the gate and stepped through the opening that appeared.

Iruka studied Kakashi out of the corner of his eye as he waited. The trip this morning from their camp to the village had pushed his tolerance to the absolute limit. Kakashi'd slowed down from the previous day – and Iruka was fairly certain that the only reason was because Kakashi wasn't able to keep up that pace – but had still forced Iruka to run faster than he would normally travel.

They'd stopped halfway, and a fast movement just behind Kakashi's head had caught Iruka's attention. Without thinking, he palmed a kunai and skewered the enormous snake that had been investigating Kakashi's hair.

The next thing he knew, he was flat on his back, with a knee in his gut, and something sharp, and likely very deadly, wedged against his throat. Iruka gagged on the blade and managed to gasp out "Snake…" as his desire for self-preservation won over his irritation that Kakashi assumed he was stupid enough to attack the jounin.

Kakashi'd glanced over his shoulder at where the snake was pinned to the tree, and the pressure of the knife had eased as he stood and moved away from Iruka, who'd picked himself up and dusted his uniform off.

Iruka hissed as his legs wobbled underneath him and rolled his shoulders, trying to release the aches in his upper back caused from Kakashi's flying tackle earlier, and he focused on a particularly large knot in the wall to keep his mind off the pain spreading through his body.

The door opened again, and a slender shinobi with a long gray-brown ponytail and a pair of fragile-looking glasses balanced on his nose stepped out and smiled brightly at them. "Hello."

Iruka returned the smile. "Hello."

"I'm Fujiwara Naoto. I'm the head teacher here. And you are…" He glanced between the two Konoha shinobi, clearly unsure of who was who.

"Umino Iruka." Iruka gestured towards Kakashi, "And this is Hatake Kakashi." _See? It's not that hard to act like a professional._

"Nice to meet you." Naoto put a shoulder against the door and pushed it open. "If you'll come with me, I'll show you around."

The village beyond Mist's imposing wall was overwhelmingly dreary. The buildings were entirely constructed of gray wood and stone, and the street was filled with a low-hanging haze that seemed to be a permanent decoration of the region and was probably the source of the village's name. The visibility was barely fifty feet, and Iruka concentrated on the twists and turns they took as they made their way into the village. Between the homogenous architecture and the low visibility, landmarks were practically useless, so he focused on building a mental map to keep from getting lost.

"If you turn right here," Naoto stopped at a nondescript corner and pointed in the specified direction. "You'll reach the school. It's only about a block down from here." He started off, continuing straight instead of heading towards the school.

"Ah…are we not going to the school?" Iruka queried.

"The students are taking an exam right now, but you'll be able to meet them and the teachers after lunch. I figured that we'd head to your apartment so that you can drop off your stuff and get settled in." Naoto glanced back and forth between the two Konoha shinobi, as if he was looking for confirmation.

"That's fine." Iruka nodded.

Kakashi remained silent, scanning the surroundings.

Naoto unlocked the door and jiggled it open before handing one of the keys to Iruka and the second to Kakashi.

Kakashi looked down at the keys before holding it out to Iruka with a look of dark humor. "I don't need keys to your apartment." Iruka heard the underlying message loud and clear: _I don't plan to be associating with you outside of work._

Not that Iruka was all that upset by the prospect – the thought of Kakashi having free access to his apartment conjured up images of shredded uniforms, dulled kunai, and booby-trapped futons.

"Um…" Naoto broke the boiling silence. "This is…_the_ apartment. The only apartment." He took a step back and held up his hands when both Iruka and Kakashi turned to glare at him. "I'm terribly sorry, but for accountability reasons, we need our visiting shinobi to stay in the designated lodging, and this is all that's available."

"There's really…nothing else?" Iruka choked out.

Naoto shook his head. "So, you can come back to the school in two hours – we should be done by then."

"Alright. Thank you." Iruka resisted the urge to shove Kakashi back as the jounin pushed past him into the apartment and barely managed an apologetic smile when Naoto cast him a strange look. He did wait until after the Mist shinobi had disappeared down the stairs to snarl at Kakashi, who simply shut the door to the only private room in his face.

OOOOOOOOOOO

The initial meeting at the school was uneventful. The students clouded around Kakashi, alternately badgering him with questions about his mask and his covered eye and speculating about what the two strips of fabric hid.

The conversation was boisterous enough, that Iruka was left relatively ignored and free to talk with the two teachers who managed the classes – Naoto and another fellow who's name Iruka had promptly forgotten, mostly because the other man had been grading exams since before they arrived and hadn't said anything outside the required polite greetings.

And even that had been a little strange.

A sudden shriek from the students surrounding Kakashi got both of their attentions, and, as Iruka spun around, a flash of bright orange caught his gaze. "You…" Two long strides brought him across the room, and he snatched Kakashi's book out of his hands and smacked him upside the head with it.

Dead silence fell in the room, and Iruka froze, the hand clenching Kakashi's book still raised high in the air from where it had finished its strike. Half of him wanted to shrink away from the terrifying aura rising around one of the world's most dangerous jounin, while the other half was still rallying from the fact that he was in a classroom, albeit not his own, and, therefore, was on his home turf.

The later won out.

"How dare you bring _this_ out in front of a group of children! This might fly in Konoha where everyone's used to you and your perverted practices, but we are _guests _here! You're a jounin. Act like one!"

For the second time in that day, Iruka found himself on the wrong end of a weapon wielded by the copy-nin. But he glared over the blade, knowing full well that Kakashi wouldn't kill him in front of all these people. Too many witnesses.

But he'd probably be wise to make his own food for the next few months.

Still, the fear didn't stop him. "So, this is acting like a jounin? Jounin aren't only the pointy end of the spear used to defend the village. They're also role models and teachers for all of the younger shinobi. You might have beaten some sense into your own team, but you are failing miserably at inspiring anyone else to be anything but a public pervert who happens to be good at fighting! You've made such a big deal out of what I said to you at the Chuunin exam, but you know why I said it? It's because I don't respect your opinion! You care more about yourself and your own entertainment than what is best for anyone else. And if that isn't true, then you should damn well start showing it, because that's all anyone sees, and all it's doing is teaching every chuunin, genin and pre-genin out there that they can be self-centered pricks as long as they can continue to complete missions and beat the living snot out of any and all opponents." Iruka huffed slightly as he finished his tirade.

He vaguely heard Naoto ushering the kids out of the room behind him, but was too busy watching Kakashi's mostly obscured expression in the vain hope that he'd be able to dodge if the jounin decided to kill him.

He couldn't quite tell if Kakashi was just beyond angry or simply astounded that the chuunin had dared to stand up to him again, but the blade was suddenly pulled back from his throat, and the other man vanished in a swirl of leaves.

"Um, is everything alright?" Naoto had his back against the door, and Iruka could hear the clamor of children outside, all of the voices hoping that there was a massive fight taking place inside.

"It's fine." Iruka pressed the heel of his hand to his forehead. "I'm sorry about that."

"It's okay; we've got our share of people who don't get along. They just don't usually get sent on missions together."

"New leadership." Iruka shrugged. "Our current hokage wasn't around when the original problem occurred, so she had no way of knowing."

"Well, we'll be around here." Naoto grinned at him. "If you're lucky, you won't have to be alone with him except at night."

"I think I'll be lucky not to be killed in my sleep, actually. Especially after this."

OOOOOOOOOOO

Kakashi checked that the door to the bedroom was firmly closed before sinking down onto the edge of the bed. He peeled off the metal-backed gloves and studied the multitude of scars etched across his hands.

He was a good shinobi, a good jounin, and – no matter what Iruka thought – a good role model.

Well, he was at least decent.

He peeled the hitae-ate away from his face and blinked at the sudden increase in detail and colors that always came with revealing the sharingan. The skin around the eye ached down to the bone. He'd asked Tsunade to do something about it, but she'd said it was a complication of the original implantation and wasn't anything she could correct. Not that he really minded the pain – it was a constant reminder of what his youthful arrogance had cost him.

When he was younger, after his father's death, he'd flung himself head first into any solo assignment ANBU would offer him. He hadn't taken a team-based mission for a very long time simply because he believed that other people would make him weak, like they had made his father.

But whatever he had been in the past, Obito's sacrifice was the swift kick in the pants that he'd needed, and he strove to pass on both Obito's and his father's message to everyone he taught.

That was why he'd never accepted a team until this one – none of the others could manage to put their own selfish desires aside.

But what Iruka'd said back there…. Despite everything he believed….Everything he taught….

Kakashi dropped his head and wound his fingers through his hair.

Was that really how other shinobi saw him?

As much as he wanted to discount Iruka's words as just being spawned by anger, they'd hit a deep truth that he couldn't escape. And whether Iruka really meant them or not, whether his reasoning was the actual truth as to why he'd stood up to him originally, didn't matter.

Because the chuunin - no matter how annoying he might be - was right.

He was a good shinobi, a good jounin, and a good role model. But no one, outside his team, Asuma, Kurenai, and possibly Gai, though Kakashi didn't put much stake in the latter, could recognize that.

He flopped back on the mattress, opening Icha Icha out of pure habit, but didn't read a single line. Only a tantalizing smell wafting through the cracks of the door brought him out of his deep contemplation.

OOOOOOOOOOO

Iruka groaned as he hefted the bags onto the counter and shuffled through them looking for anything that needed to be refrigerated. He'd managed to locate a small grocery store on the road between the school and their apartment and had picked up just enough for dinner and breakfast. He knew he should get supplies for the following few nights, but he was too tired to wrap his brain around what he would feel like cooking tomorrow or the day after.

A short search located the utensils he needed, and, after he muttered a quiet thanks to whoever had been intelligent enough to supply their quarters with a fully functioning and fully stocked kitchen, he busied himself preparing the food in an effort to ignore the closed door just down the hall.

OOOOOOOOOOO

Kakashi sat up slowly, his stomach reminding him that he hadn't eaten since rations the previous night. While he had, on many occasions, gone without food for days on end, he still preferred to eat.

The whole situation was made worse by the fact that whatever Iruka was cooking smelled fantastic. Unfortunately he wasn't entirely sure how to deal with Iruka. He wasn't even sure if the chuunin would be willing to share.

A soft knock at the door was followed by a hesitant cough, "Kakashi-san?" Kakashi winced at the honorific – he'd been the first one to stop calling the other 'sensei,' mostly because it required no effort and pissed off Iruka so well – but now he fully understood why Iruka had glommed onto the use and turned it back on him, "I've got more than enough food out here, if you'd like some."

Iruka pressed his ear to the door and listened. He wasn't even sure that Kakashi was in there, but despite his underlying frustration with the porn-reading jounin, he did feel bad about the outburst earlier. One of the fastest ways to loose control over a group of students was to show dissidence between the teachers, particularly since Kakashi outranked him. Though he felt his reaction was completely justified, Iruka still wished he'd managed to keep his temper in check until after they'd been back here.

He was sure he could hear Kakashi breathing, but didn't hear any movement to indicate that the other man was coming out. "It'll be on the stove if you want it."

Iruka rolled his eyes as he turned away from the door. _I have to admit, though, that if he'd made dinner, I wouldn't have touched it either._

OOOOOOOOOOO

Iruka flopped down on the lumpy couch. He'd managed to scrounge up a blanket that only smelled slightly of mildew out of one of the cabinets. He attempted to nestle down deeper into the couch, punching one of the cushions into something slightly more comfortable.

He would kill for a real bed right now, especially after the mad dash they'd taken from Konoha to Mist. But that would require flinging the door open to the bedroom and either dragging Kakashi from the bed and depositing him on the couch or crawling in with him.

Iruka shuddered. Neither possibility was even the least bit amusing.

His eyes finally slid closed as his body gave into general exhaustion that was strong enough to overwhelm his very active dislike of his makeshift bed.

OOOOOOOOOOOO

"I want them out here now!" Kakashi heard Iruka scrambling off the sofa as the shout echoed down the narrow corridor towards his bedroom.

Kakashi lurched to his feet and staggered out into the hall in time to see Iruka pull a loose uniform shirt over his head. "I'm sorry; is something wrong?" Kakashi was amazed at how polite the other man managed to sound despite the decidedly rude awakening.

"What?! Are you just going to pretend that you haven't done something?!" The man took a poorly-aimed swing at Iruka, and the chuunin ducked it, carefully catching the man's arm, pulling it down and immobilizing him. The move was smooth, well-practiced, and probably used often on irate pre-genins.

"We haven't done anything." Iruka insisted without releasing his hold.

"My son's vanished! It had to be you people; you met him this afternoon! I told you," The man raised his head and shouted at the people in the hall, spittle flying off his lips. "No good'll come from letting outsiders in here! And now…my son…" He sagged in Iruka's grip, and his weight threatened to drag the chuunin down as well. Tired sobs echoed out from his lowered head. "My son…."

Kakashi padded farther down the hall so that he could just see out the front door. Several shinobi who looked like they belonged to the guard crowded in the narrow hall along with Naoto, who seemed to have come along simply because they were suspected. Naoto was holding both his hands up, palms forward and was arguing sotto voce with the other mist shinobi.

"We've been here since the sun went down." Iruka said directly to Naoto.

"Both of you?" One of the guards, a sour-faced man with closely set eyes, an unkempt scruff around his chin that was more than a five o'clock shadow and somewhat less than a proper beard, and a sneer that looked to be permanently affixed to his face. "Are you vouching for each other?"

"I'm sorry…?" Iruka shook his head as if that would help clear the confusion and wondered if his brain was still a little fogged over from lack of sleep.

"Is there anyone else who can verify that you didn't leave?"

"No." Kakashi stated bluntly, causing all eyes to snap in his direction. "You will have to take our word for it."

"Please." Naoto went as far as to step between them. "They are fellow shinobi, from Konoha. I'm sure they're trustworthy. Besides, Daisuke-kun has a penchant for wandering off. I'm sure we'll find him in the morning."

The guard snorted darkly and whirled, disappearing down the hallway. Naoto reached out and put an arm around the sobbing man's shoulders, pulling him gently off the floor, and Iruka released him with an apologetic smile.

"You have no idea if I was here or not." Kakashi pointed out.

Iruka turned towards him, his arms folded across his chest. "And if you weren't, if you were just out reading that book of yours in public – because no matter what I think of you, I refuse to believe that you would kidnap a child – then you have no idea if I was here. So, if you'll excuse me, I'm going back to bed."

OOOOOOOOOOO

Thanks for reading!


	3. Chapter 3

Enjoy!

OOOOOOOOOO

Iruka struggled with the worn blanket he'd cocooned himself in during the night. He thought he'd heard something in the kitchen, but when he raised his head to peer over the arm of the sofa, the room was deserted. He kicked the covers off his feet and stood slowly, one hand hitching up the pants that threatened to slide off his hips.

The rolls he'd gotten for breakfast were still wrapped and looked to be untouched, and he was just coming to the conclusion that he must have imagined it when he opened the fridge door, intending to pull out the butter, and discovered that about half of the food he'd made last night had disappeared.

He snorted and rolled his eyes at the image of Kakashi sneaking around with the food, perhaps even muffling the microwave just to keep him from knowing that the jounin would deign to eat his food.

"….such a child…." He muttered, scarfed down the bread and headed for the shower.

OOOOOOOOOO

"Any luck?" Iruka let his bag slide to the floor as he pulled up a seat next to Naoto's desk.

"With….?" Naoto looked decidedly harried as he straightened the papers and shoved his glasses up his nose with his free hand.

"The kid."

"Oh, sorry. Last night's a bit of a blur. I'd forgotten that they'd come to see you guys." He shook his head. "Nothing yet, but he tends to wander off every once in awhile for some reason or another. I'm sure we'll find him."

A weird silence hung between them as Iruka fought down the urge to point out that, if a child had gone missing in Konoha, the whole village would have been mobilized until he or she was found.

Naoto finally broke it by holding out the papers to him. "These are our pre-genin academy lesson plans. Sorry they're a little messy – some of us have been teaching here a while, and we don't bother to keep things organized because we know it like the back of our hands."

"Just the Academy plans?" Iruka flipped through the pages.

"Yes, well, your cohort is off talking to one of our jounin-sensei about our genin training and examinations. He got here about a half an hour before you." Naoto grinned broadly and winked at him. "I'm glad you showed up. For a little bit there, I thought he may actually have killed you in your sleep."

Iruka snorted and winced as the movement shot a twinge of pain through one of the many knots in his back. "I don't know; I might almost wish he had. That couch is murder."

"Standard issue, I'm afraid." Naoto chuckled. "I used to have one just like it. Sat on the floor instead."

"Phew, I can't say I blame you."

The students started to file in right on the tail end of his statement, and Iruka rose, stretched and found a vacant seat at the back that he could observe from without interrupting the class. He slipped the lesson plans into his bag to peruse later.

OOOOOOOOOO

Kakashi shoved his hands deep in his pockets and ambled in the general direction of the apartment. Watching the genin training had been…educational, to say the least. The Mist genin simply did not take missions. As far as Kakashi could tell, their shinobi were not hired for anything less than B-rank missions, but given the row after row after row of dilapidated houses he was passing that had been hidden in the fog the day before, he was seriously considering suggesting that they start taking a lower rank missions. C and D missions might pay a little less, but with all the genin around here who were just training day in and day out, the village would certainly be able to make a little more money.

The genin trained in groups of three, but the teams did not seem to be specifically assigned. From the conversations he'd overheard, the three genin he'd observed had been on at least twelve different teams in the last week of training. Likewise, the jounin, and a large percentage of the chuunin, were not assigned to specific teams, but rotated around and spared with the trainees.

It was brilliant, really. Instead of being trained on teamwork, something that was the most important lesson for a genin to learn in the Konoha curriculum, they were learning flexibility and improvisation, which was focused on at chuunin level in Konoha. Mist was training an elite fighting force that was ready to deal with any situation and prepared from the beginning for fighting with multiple shinobi of varying skills and techniques.

But he'd also watched one of the genin trip his comrade and push him into the jounin they were fighting in order to get his own opportunity. If the jounin had been a real opponent and had not dropped the point of his bladed staff into the dirt, the boy's comrade would have been run through. Kakashi'd almost dropped the boy to the ground and beat some sense into him, but the Mist jounin training them had commended the genin on his quick thinking.

He shook his head in disgust and pressed his hand to his neck, rubbing the crick that had suddenly tightened his muscles.

OOOOOOOOOO

Iruka shuffled through the plastic bag, searching for something out of the groceries that he could munch on during the walk home. He was downright starving and didn't feel like waiting to get back to the rented apartment and cook something.

He fished around for a while before settling on ripping a hunk out of the bread he'd gotten and chewing thoughtfully on the crust. All things considered, the lesson plans already in place weren't bad, per se, but could certainly be tweaked to help the students learn a better. He paused to pick a seed out of his teeth, ruminating on how best to rework the teaching schedule, and a flash of silver hair caught the edge of his gaze.

Iruka let out a snort of disbelief - Kakashi was motionless and face-down on the cobbled street. The jounin hadn't struck him as a heavy drinker, but it certainly didn't surprise him.

_I should just leave him there._

It took a concerted effort of will to keep from turning tail and walking back the other direction, and as much as he hated to admit, a large motivation for returning to Kakashi's side was to keep the other man from getting robbed. Kakashi did have to pay for half the food and rent, after all.

A dark, viscous splotch trailed across the road and into the gutter on the far side. It was far enough removed from Kakashi that Iruka didn't give it a second glance. "Alright, Kakashi-san, let's get you…." Iruka trailed off as he leaned over Kakashi's shoulder and caught sight of the jounin's face.

Kakashi's visible eye was wide open and frozen in its socket. _Oh shit. He better not be dead._ Iruka grabbed his wrist and fumbled around for the vein, breathing a sigh of relief when a faint pulse thudded against his fingertips.

As he got over the initial panic, he caught a faint almond scent wafting up from Kakashi's disturbed clothes. "Paralyzers…?" Iruka whispered. One of the things he'd added to his curriculum was a slightly more mundane way of identifying types of poisons – by smell. Some, the ones used by the best shinobi, were odorless and usually colorless, but he figured that, if you were being poisoned by a top-level shinobi, you probably shouldn't be relying on such simple methods.

No, he was worried about his kids being taken on by a bumbling lower-level shinobi or, more likely, their own classmates, since the making of the same poisons was taught later in the year.

"What is going on?" Iruka hissed as he grabbed hold of Kakashi's shoulders and hauled the limp body into a sitting position. A paralyzer wasn't exactly something you accidentally got dosed with; whoever had tagged Kakashi had done it on purpose, but Iruka couldn't figure out why.

He grunted as he hefted the jounin over his shoulder, looping his arms around the other man's knees to balance the load and keep Kakashi from sliding over his shoulder and headfirst into the ground. As he backed away, his foot came down on slick stone, and he almost dropped to on knee as his leg slid out from under him. He spun and stared at the liquid on the ground. It looked for all the world like…

_Blood?_

He was fairly certain that Kakashi wasn't injured, so the blood must have belonged to someone else, maybe even the person who'd drugged Kakashi, but at this point he just wanted to get the jounin home before he got accosted by too many people.

As he turned on to the main thoroughfare, he dropped his head and valiantly prayed that no one would ask any questions.

"Too much to drink, eh? I'd take advantage of it if I were you." A dark snicker came from a pair of shinobi that staggered past him, leaning heavily on each other.

Iruka felt his cheeks flare brilliantly, ducked his head, and struggled for a level tone as he replied, "Well, you know, gift horses and all that." He barely managed an indifferent shrug with the shoulder that Kakashi wasn't slung over.

The male shinobi guffawed and elbowed his female companion. "There's a man after my own heart."

The woman rolled her eyes. "That's not something to brag about."

"Well, I don't exactly have much to brag about, now do I? I take what I can…." The voices faded as the two moved farther away from him, and Iruka forced himself to relax.

Iruka groaned under his breath as he lugged the body up the stairs. "What did you do, get into a pissing contest with one of their jounin?" He leaned against the wall on the first floor landing and hefted his burden higher onto his shoulder. "You couldn't at least be considerate and make post-fight arrangements so I didn't have to carry you around."

The door to their apartment was locked, of course, and a brief struggle ensued while he tried to get the key into the lock without either dropping it or Kakashi. Maneuvering Kakashi through the halls of their apartment proved harder than he'd expected, but he finally managed to drop the practically lifeless body onto the bed.

OOOOOOOOOOO

Kakashi could feel his chest rise and fall, could feel the strong muscles shifting under his stomach but couldn't seem to make anything function. When Iruka tumbled him onto the bed, he tried desperately to flex his arms and legs in order to arrange himself into a more comfortable position, but the muscles refused to respond. He stared at the ceiling simply because he couldn't look at anything else, but the view looked incredibly wrong. From the turns Iruka made after entering the building, he knew that he'd been deposited in the bedroom, but he didn't remember the fine cracks on the ceiling, or the almost invisible spider's webs in the corners.

He could make out a shadow on the ceiling, but Iruka remained out of his field of view. Hands grasped his legs and shifted them, and he let out a mental sigh of relief as the painful twist in his knee was straightened out. Iruka's face came into view as the touch transferred to his arms, shoulders, and finally his head. He could see the jagged edge of Iruka's scar in clear relief and every fleck of color in his eyes combined with a strange after-image that seemed to precede each of his movements.

His brain finally tuned in and alerted him to the obvious explanation. The enhanced vision combined with the disappearance of the feeling of cloth over the left side of his face suggested that his sharingan was uncovered.

His vision swum, Iruka's face blurring. _Already?_ His hitae-ate had slipped off when Iruka'd picked him up – he could pinpoint the change now that he thought back on it - and the walk home couldn't have taken more than 10 minutes. His stamina allowed him to use his sharingan passively like this for two or three days on end. He shouldn't be feeling the effects of its use this soon, but the headache arced through his brain, and he felt his breathing and heartbeat slowing.

The reactions were too fast. The paralyzer he'd been given must have drained or blocked his chakra, and at this rate, he would die long before the drug wore off.

"Kakashi-san?" Iruka'd been a heartbeat away from leaving the other man to sleep it off when he noticed Kakashi's breathing shallow. He knelt on the bed, leaning over the immobile body. "Kakashi-san?"

_Shit. _He hissed mentally. He'd recognized the presence of one drug, but hadn't thought to check for a second. It was possible that Kakashi had another poison swimming in his veins – one that would kill.

And he had next to no chance of identifying it and even less of a chance of having or finding an antidote.

He pressed his ear to the jounin's chest, hearing the strong heart falter and skip.

"_Bam, right on his face!" Naruto slammed his hand down on Ichiraku's counter. "Just like that!"_

"_Naruto." Iruka scolded gently, "You really shouldn't make fun of your teacher."_

"_But he made us all think that he was invincible during that stupid test with the bells, and he gets taken out by his own technique! I knew he wasn't perfect!"_

_Iruka'd sighed, feeling the need to defend the higher-ranking shinobi, "Don't gloat, Naruto, it's extremely juvenile."_

Kakashi's hitae-ate was missing. _I'm a moron. You think I would have noticed that change._ He sat on the side of the bed, pulling the cloth band from his head. The knot tangled with his hair-tie and pulled it free as well. He untangled the two, leaned forward and wrapped the protector around Kakashi's face, covering the swirling eye.

The jounin's demeanor changed instantly, the breathing evened and slowed to a more natural rhythm and the lifeless body somehow seemed to relax.

Kakashi felt the bed shift as Iruka rose and left the room, and he was left with an unobstructed view of the uninteresting ceiling.

But his mind kept replaying the perfectly memorized image of Iruka's hair cascading down around his face as he pulled his hitae-ate from his head.

Iruka grabbed the lumpy pillow from couch, bundled the blanket into his arms and returned to Kakashi's room. He tossed both down beside the bed and settled down, listening to the even breathing coming from the paralyzed shinobi on the bed.

OOOOOOOOOOOO

A loud banging broke the comfortable silence in the apartment, and Iruka shot up off the floor, his heart slamming in his chest. He'd barely slept, as he kept waking, thinking he'd heard a change the room's ambient noise that might signal Kakashi either getting better or worse.

He made it to the door right as the second set of knocking broke the silence. "I'm coming. I'm coming." He paused long enough to bite back any truly irritable comments and hauled the door open.

Iruka recognized the sour-faced guard from the night before. "Can I help you?"

"We're here to ask you about a child's disappearance."

"Look, you were here yesterday, we don't have anything to do with that!" Iruka insisted shifting his weight to his other foot.

"This is about another child."

"A.." Iruka opened his mouth in shock. "Another child?! Another child has gone missing? And you think we're involved?"

"Yes." The man reached into his pocket, extended his hand, and a Konoha hitae-ate tumbled from his grip, dangling in the air and suspended at one end by his fingers. "We found this at the scene."

"That's mine." Iruka stated. "I took it off on the way home, when I stopped at the grocery store. I tucked it into my bag, and when I got home it wasn't there. It must have fallen out."

"Down a back alley? Did you wander off the main road for some…sight-seeing?" Iruka opened his mouth to explain but the guard cut him off. "Don't bother; I know this isn't yours." He grabbed the hitae-ate and spread it out, holding it in front of Iruka's face.

The hitae-ate was creased into a very distinctive shape by repeated wear and tear. The angled edge was grimy from constant contact with the wearer's face, while the front remained clean. The guard reversed it so that the metal emblem faced away from Iruka and held it up against Iruka's face.

"Not unless you regularly cover one of your eyes." He smiled evilly at Iruka and leaned in, and Iruka caught a whiff of what the man must have had for breakfast and grimaced. "Where's your partner?"

Iruka made a split decision – more lies at this point would only make them look guiltier. "He's in the bedroom. He's been paralyzed, but I found him like that in the alley. There was no sign of foul play and no sign of a child. I just figured he must have said something to piss off one of your jounin, and I didn't want him to get in trouble." Iruka tried hard not to let his eyes follow the two men who pushed past him down the hall and half carried, half dragged Kakashi out of the bedroom. "Listen." Iruka grabbed hold of the guard's arm, ignoring the dark look cast down at the offending hand. "He would not do this. He was either in the wrong place at the wrong time or he's being set-up."

The man flicked Iruka's hold off with a quick movement, causing the chuunin to stumble forward. "Are you insinuating that one of our own people is kidnapping our children?" He turned and followed his subordinates and Kakashi out, slamming the door behind him.

Iruka fell back against the wall and slid to the floor as his knees gave out from underneath him. This had to be the only moment he had ever seen the elite jounin vulnerable. He had almost left the other man in the alley. He had almost killed him simply by knocking his hitae-ate off. Kakashi was his comrade and his partner for this mission, and Iruka was not even capable of protecting him when he needed it most. He pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes, "Shit, shit, shit, SHIT!"

The last curse echoed off the walls of the empty apartment.

OOOOOOOOOO

Kakashi groaned as he was tossed unceremoniously into the dank, stone-floored cell.

"Ah, your vocal cords are working again." A sneering voice remarked from somewhere behind him. "It shouldn't be too long before you tell us where the kids are."

_Kids? Plural? _Kakashi tried to ask the questions, but a series of grunts and gagging noises issued forth instead. He stopped trying to talk, and instead hoped that Iruka was smart enough to return to Konoha and get help. Things had gone south too far, too quickly, and they couldn't risk both of them being stuck.

OOOOOOOOOO

Iruka jogged up the few short steps and rapped sharply on the door. He was virtually certain he'd arrived at the right place and was grateful when the door opened on a familiar face. "Naoto-sensei."

"Iruka-sensei? You're out late."

"What's going on? The guards just came our apartment asking about…."

"The four disappearances." Naoto cut him off. "I know. It looks like it wasn't just Daisuke-kun being peculiar."

Iruka gaped at him. "Four?"

"You didn't know? After the first one, we lost two this morning around 6 and a third between 3 and 3:30."

"The times?" Iruka grabbed Naoto's upper arms. "They're sure about that?"

"Well, yes. They're limited by when the children left home in the morning and when they left school in the afternoon."

"The jounin that Kakashi-san was meeting with? Where does he live?"

Naoto looked puzzled, "He's two streets over, one block down. Apartment 4C. But he's probably not there."

"Where should I look for him?"

"He's probably in the center of town, outside the jail. News spread fast about your comrade's arrest and most of the shinobi are calling for blood."

Iruka turned and sprinted up the path.

"Iruka-sensei? What are you doing?"

"I just need to ask him something." He called back over his shoulder.

He reached the central square and was instantly grateful that his forehead protector was currently wrapped around Kakashi's head and not his own, or he was likely to be lynched by the crowd.

People rallied and railed, shouting and demanding everything from execution to explanations. Some even brandished weapons.

The jounin he was looking for was instantly recognizable. Tall, dark and hulking, he loomed over the people standing closest to him. He seemed to be spreading his hands in order to placate the mob swarming around him.

Iruka elbowed his way over and shouted in order to get the man's attention. Once he'd identified himself, the man shook his head. "Don't know why they're accusing him of this. We started training at 5:30 sharp and finished after the last kid disappeared. He couldn't have done it; he was with us the whole time."

Iruka nodded. "I thought as much, thank you."

He pushed and kicked his way to the front door of the jail, where the all-too-familiar guard folded his arms and glared down at him. "What can I do for you, Konoha shinobi?"

He said it loud enough to carry, and the throng silenced instantly, hissing whispers radiating outwards from where he stood as he was identified to every armed, trained killer surrounding him.

"He didn't do it." Iruka spoke loudly, letting his voice carry. The more people who heard it, the more likely it was that Kakashi would make it out alive. "He couldn't have. He was with one of your jounin during both kidnappings."

"We've been through this, shinobi." The guard snarled. "Are you trying to pin blame on our citizens?"

Iruka took a deep steadying breath. He'd thrown himself in front of Mizuki's shuriken to save Naruto, he could sure as hell get himself tossed into jail for Kakashi. "I did it."

Shouts and curses rained in around him, and Iruka caught sight of Naoto at the edge of the crowd, his hands over his mouth. "I have no alibi, and as you so astutely pointed out, this was not done by someone from Mist."

A broken scream issued from one man's mouth as he lunged desperately at Iruka, "Tell me where my daughter is!"

The guard caught the man's forearm, halting the frantic attack. "If you kill him, we will never find out."

Iruka held out his arms, wrist together and barely flinched as the cuffs snapped closed around his wrists. They were imbued with a chakra-impeding element, and he shivered as it came in contact with his skin, seeming to suck the heat out of the immediate area.

"Why are you just turning yourself in?" The guard gripped the center of his cuffs and pulled him through the door.

Iruka raised his chin. "I'm not about to let an innocent man be executed for something he didn't do."

The hooded eyes studied him. "Is that so." The cell door banged open and he shoved Iruka into it.

"What the hell are you doing here?" Kakashi demanded, his speech slurred from the after-affects of the drug.

Iruka sank onto the rough-hewn bench and starred impassively at the barred wall across from him. "I told them I did it."

Kakashi felt the dark anger boiling within him until he could no longer control his tongue. "You what?" He hissed. "You should be headed back to Konoha by now! I was fairly certain that this kind of genuine stupidity was reserved to Naruto and maybe Sakura, but only if Sasuke's involved!"

"Look." The word snapped out sharply in the same tone that consistently brought all pre-genin to a screeching halt, regardless of what they were doing. "I am not an idiot." Each word was clipped, but Iruka didn't turn towards him. "The people out there are about three heartbeats away from stringing you up by your neck until you stop breathing, and I am well aware of who is more valuable to the village. So when they let you out, you should go back to the village, and if I'm lucky, I'll still be alive by the time a full team gets back."

Kakashi opened his mouth, but no sound came out.

"I've gotten you out of an execution, the least you could do is say thanks." Iruka pointed out sharply.

_Thanks?! _Kakashi wanted to scream. _You want me to say thanks? You've practically signed your own death warrant just to save me. They're going to kill…_

_I don't…I don't want anyone else to die for me. _

OOOOOOOOO

Thanks so much for reading! As always, I love reviews, even if they're criticism (though I prefer them to be constructive) ^^


	4. Chapter 4

Hope it wasn't too bad of a wait ^^;

OOOOOOOOO

Kakashi paced back and forth behind the bars of their cell like a caged tiger, while Iruka remained still and silent as a statue, seated on the edge of the bench, his cuffed hands folded together and resting between his knees.

Despite the fact that he'd turned himself in, they still hadn't released Kakashi. Iruka wanted to ask why, but that would likely backfire. If he went to the trouble to ask, they might think he'd turned himself in simply to get the jounin released.

It was, of course, exactly what he'd done, but he saw no reason to bring attention to it.

So he simply closed his eyes and focused inward – he was well aware of what was coming and was slowly building a wall between mind and body.

_Not that it matters. _His inner voice stated matter-of-factly. _They can torture you all they want; it's not like you actually have anything to tell them._

"Get up!" A deep voice barked from just out of sight of the cell door. As the door swung open, Kakashi stepped directly between the opening and Iruka, stumbling as his muscles refused to respond normally.

"Don't be stupid." Iruka muttered as the guard snapped the exact same thing at the jounin.

The guard grabbed hold of Kakashi's bound wrists, twisted the cuffs violently, and threw him to the floor. Still partially drugged and with his chakra blocked, Kakashi didn't have a chance to try and catch himself.

The man stopped in front of Iruka. "Get up."

Kakashi struggled to get his feet under him as Iruka rose, and the guard pulled him out.

OOOOOOOOO

Kakashi shouted several choice phrases at the lackeys as they dragged Iruka back to the cell. The chuunin was unconscious, likely from the same injury that caused the nasty green bruise spreading high across his cheekbone, and his back was patterned in slowly oozing cuts. Kakashi eased the chuunin to the floor, rolling him to rest on his stomach and turning his face so that the bruise wasn't pressed against the stone floor.

"That's an awful lot of care for a child kidnapper." Kakashi spun as fast as he could manage and watched the all-too-familiar guard fold his arms. "You seem so worried about him being hurt."

Kakashi barely kept himself from snapping "He would NEVER kidnap a child!" and settled on simply glaring at the odious man.

"Your papers have been processed." He yanked the door open and pushed Kakashi ahead of him down the hall and up the stairs to the main entryway of the jail. Kakashi rubbed at his wrists as the cuffs fell away, subconsciously trying to dispel the crawling sensation the chakra-deadening substance always caused. "You're being released." The guard pushed him out onto the front steps. "Leave this place."

The crowd surrounding the door completely ignored him save for a few sideways glances as he pushed through. They were focused completely on the guard who had freed him, shouting questions about what information they'd managed to get out of the criminal.

OOOOOOOOO

Hands gripped him roughly under the arms and lifted him to his feet the second he started stirring. Iruka's head lolled back as they started to drag him, and he got a complete view of the cell. "Ka…ka…shi….sa…"

"Your friend's gone. There's no one left to help you, so you might as well just tell us what we want to know."

Iruka let his head fall limply to his chest. _Thank god. He should be headed back to Konoha by now._

OOOOOOOOO

Iruka clenched his teeth together to keep from groaning as the stone floor slowly swam into focus. He rolled over onto his back, only to wince in pain as the fourth set of cuts across his shoulder blades opened up. The wounds stung violently as they came in contact with the mold coating the flat stones.

"He's awake. Go tell Taro-san."

_Oh, is that his name? _The guard that had hounded them since the beginning of this incident had also overseen Iruka's 'questioning.' _I'll have to remember that._

A pair of raucous clatters echoed in the enclosed space, and Iruka struggled to sit up as the lock on his cell rattled and the door creaked open. "Dear me, don't you look a sight."

"Naoto…sensei?"

OOOOOOOOO

The two guards who had been dragging him back and forth between the interrogation room and his cell were slumped across the lowest step, and something prickled at the back of his skull. The situation was somehow familiar, but Naoto wrapped an arm around his waist to steady him and pulled him up towards the open doorway and freedom, and he filed the strange feeling away for later investigation.

As they reached the upper hallway, Naoto flattened himself against the wall and glanced towards the main doorway before moving silently in the other direction. Iruka quickly gave up on keeping track of the turns as they wound their way through a warren of corridors. They rounded a final corner into a cul-de-sac, and Iruka almost slid into Naoto as the other teacher came to a complete halt. His back screamed in protest as he dug his heels into the well-worn floor.

Naoto ducked sideways behind a floor-to-ceiling set of metal racks that held piles upon piles of paper that hid a narrow doorway marked with a hand-scrawled sign that read 'Emergency Exit Only.' Naoto set his shoulder against it and eased it open, grinning over his shoulder at Iruka. "Phew. Thank god some of the guards don't want to go around the long way. This is the only other exit from this building."

They stepped down into the dank alley beyond, and Naoto gripped Iruka's arm, pointing a single finger towards the sky. "Up."

Iruka nodded silently and vaulted to the rooftops, tailing Naoto towards the village limits.

They skidded to a halt deep within the tangled forest that surrounded the village. "This is insane. You're going to be held responsible, you know." Iruka turned to face Naoto who'd stopped a few feet behind him.

"Oh, I don't doubt it." Naoto flicked his hand sharply, and Iruka slapped the side of his neck in an attempt to quell the sudden, lancing pain.

"Wha…?" A waft of an all-to-familiar almond scent drifted suddenly past his nose. "You!" He reached for his kunai, brows drawing down in confusion when he didn't feel any cloth under his fingers.

"Your hand hasn't moved." The mist shinobi smirked at him, and the expression was so foreign on the kindly teacher's face that Iruka couldn't think of anything to say. "Here, let me show you." Naoto grabbed his chin roughly and forced his head down. "This paralyzer will work slowly on you; it's a fair bit different from what I gave your partner. You can't move your limbs, and in a few minutes you won't be able to speak anymore. And then," A hand pushed up against his sternum. "Your lungs won't even be able to expand anymore, and you'll suffocate while you're just standing here."

"Why? Why are you doing this? Why would you take those children?" Iruka desperately wanted to shove the other man away from him, but his extremities refused to respond.

"Do you know the fastest way for a shinobi village to make money? Do you know how much the surrounding villages will pay in order to be safe? You've seen our village. We're not getting enough revenue simply by taking the odd missions that come in. But a war with Konoha, now that," Iruka grunted in pain as Naoto ripped the senbon that he'd used to administer the paralyzer out of the side of his neck, "That will bring in all the funds we could ever hope for. But only if we seem like we're on the right side. I mean, going over and picking a fight with you; that would be stupid. But if we invite some Konoha shinobi to help us with the noble cause of better educating our children, and they kidnap our young." Naoto spread his hands, "Why, the people would be _clamoring_ for war."

"That's your job? Frame us and start a war that will only lead to hundreds of casualties on both sides just to get some money?"

"Don't your ANBU murder people for money. Is there that much of a difference between killing one person and killing a hundred for money?"

Iruka hoped that the muscles in his face were still working, because he wasn't entirely sure he could put his disgust into words.

"When we discovered that two of you were coming, we weren't sure that we were going to be able to carry out this mission. But you can't even imagine my thrill when I saw that display between you two in the classroom." Naoto clapped his hands together. "Everything seemed to be so perfect, but you're just too loyal for your own good, aren't you? I never expected you to vouch for each other, and I certainly never expected you to stop and help him."

"So you're going to kill me?" Iruka was finding it harder and harder to breathe. "Don't you think that Konoha will find that a little bit suspicious?"

"That's why I'm not going to kill you."

"Could have fooled me." Iruka gasped.

"You are going to tragically die in a misguided escape attempt. I was trying to stop you so that we could learn the location of the missing children and paralyzed you to keep you from either attacking me or getting away, but unfortunately, you were moving too quickly, and before I could reach you…" Naoto put his hand in the center of Iruka's chest again and pushed.

Iruka felt the scrub brush behind him give way under his dead weight, and he rapidly passed the point where he should of connected with the ground and continued to fall. He flipped over from the sheer momentum and glimpsed his impending doom – a flat black sheet of water nearly one hundred feet below him. The sheer cliff raced by barely inches from his face. If he could only make contact with the wall, he'd be able to use chakra to slow his fall, but he couldn't even wiggle his little finger.

_I'm going to die…._

Naoto leaned over the edge and watched the tiny ripples arc out far below. "Well, that should do it." He pulled at his hair, tangling the ponytail and plastering a few strands to his forehead. He turned and tore through the woods, crying for help as soon as he was close enough to the gate.

OOOOOOOOO

Kakashi crouched high above the gate on a tree limb that hung heavy over the wall surrounding Mist Village. He'd dispatched his dogs to Konoha seconds after being freed from the jail, but remained to monitor the situation. Iruka clearly hadn't been killed yet, but he also hadn't given them any information about the children's where-abouts.

Which wasn't surprising, considering that he didn't have any information.

However, he was worried that their lack of success in motivating Iruka might lead to more drastic measures. They certainly had trackers in this village and were probably already looking for the children. They might just kill him to satisfy the demands of the villagers, who had been calling for Iruka's blood since the night he'd turned himself in.

A commotion directly below him drew his attention, and he turned in time to see Naoto stagger into the clearing around the gate, shouting, "Escape!" He seized the guard's lapels and hauled him forward. "The prisoner….escaped…dead…" He gasped out.

_What?_

Kakashi jammed his hand against the branch and summoned Pakkun. Iruka's hitae-ate was stuffed inside his vest – he'd wound up with both after he'd been taken to the jail – and he held it towards the dog. Pakkun dropped to the ground and instantly picked up the trail in the direction Naoto came from.

Pakkun straightened his legs frantically and slid to across the ground. "Cliff." He barked sharply, and Kakashi skidded to a halt behind him.

"The trail?"

Pakkun had his nose to the ground and was moving in rapid circles around the area. "It ends here. But there's something else though. Smells like a paralyzer – real nasty one too." The dog whuffed and sneezed. "Actually, it smells like that chuunin that went by earlier."

Kakashi mentally followed the trail to the point where the paralyzer was administered and to it's inevitable conclusion. "Shit." He shed his weapons pouch and vest and dove over the edge.

The water was murky and seemed to almost cling to his skin. The visibility was so low, he could barely see his hand in front of his face as he stroked towards the bottom. He shoved his hitae-ate up to reveal his sharingan and searched desperately for flickers of chakra in the deep.

_There!_ His fingers closed around the front of the chuunin's vest and he pulled hard, dragging Iruka's limp body into his arms before striking for the surface.

Kakashi hefted the unresponsive body onto the shore, one hand dropping to his pocket to free a combat syringe filled with an ugly green liquid that he jammed into Iruka's thigh. "Iruka?" He pushed the sodden hair from the other man's face. "Come on. Breathe."

He pleaded, shouted, and cursed at the other man as he waited for the antidote to kick in and alternately prayed that Iruka's lungs had stopped working before he'd plunged into the water.

Iruka coughed suddenly, rolling onto his side and vomiting up several lung-fulls of water.

And all Kakashi could do was clutch the chuunin's vest and bury his head in Iruka's shoulder as his body shook with relief. "You're alive."

"Ka…Kakashi-sensei, what…?" Iruka sucked air into his aching lungs, wondering how he was breathing when he was fairly certain that he'd been poisoned and drowned. "Wh…Why aren't you back in Konoha?!" He grabbed hold of Kakashi's shoulders and pushed him away. "Are you a complete idiot?! I turned myself in so that you could get safely away and come to find out that you haven't even left! Where do you get off just hanging around and not taking the opportunity I worked so hard to…" He trailed off as Kakashi let out a gasp of weary chuckles. "What?!" Iruka snarled.

"I never thought I'd be so happy to have you yelling at me." Kakashi could count on one hand the number of times someone had saved his life. Before this mission, he could accomplish it with only one finger, and until his genin team, he'd taken all of his missions solo because of a deep-seated fear of owing his life to the generosity of someone else. He'd been unable to properly thank Obito for what he'd done, and he spent every day in front of the memorial stone asking for forgiveness. Kakashi wrapped a hand around Iruka's chin and pressed covered lips against the chuunin's blue-tinged ones.

When he pulled back, Iruka's eyes were wide with some unfathomable emotion. "You…but...." His mouth worked, but no sound emerged until he finally managed to get his brain in gear, "You hate me."

"I thought you were dead…" He whispered. "I wouldn't even have been here if that chuunin sensei hadn't been screaming bloody murder about your escape."

"Naoto! He's behind this. We have to…" Iruka pushed weakly at Kakashi's shoulder, trying to free himself from the jounin's tight grasp.

"Naoto?" Kakashi questioned sharply. "What the hell does he have to do with this?"

"He kidnapped the kids…tried to frame us…it was…his…job." Iruka's head fell back, and he blinked slowly. "We've got to tell….to tell… Wha…?" He swallowed, his brows knitting in concentration as he saw the syringe still gripped in Kakashi's hand. "What did you give….me?"

"It's an antidote for the drug he used on you." Kakashi cupped his hand around the back of Iruka's head. "The sedation is common side effect."

"Sedation…?" Iruka struggled to get the word out as he fought just as hard to keep his eyes open.

"Don't worry." Kakashi summoned Pakkun with his free hand. "Our back-up team just arrived."

Iruka's eyes slid completely shut as Kakashi exchanged quick words with Pakkun, and the dog turned and vanished on the spot, bringing news of the plot and culprits to the Konoha team.

OOOOOOOOO

Iruka slowly dragged his shirt over his head, gnawing at his lip as the wounds stung.

The official story issued by the Kirikage was that a council member, acting on his own, misguided beliefs, had charged Naoto with luring a Konoha shinobi to Mist, framing them, and starting a war. Whether the order had originated with the full knowledge of Mist's council, they would probably never know.

Fujiwara Naoto, as it turned out, was a former Mist ANBU who specialized in senbon-applied poisons. He'd been in ANBU for a little over a year before he'd been injured - a bad stab wound to the lower back had scarcely limited his range of motion hindered him enough to render him unqualified for ANBU.

He was being held in their prison indefinitely. As the children, Kakashi and himself were unharmed, the Kages were willing to forgo a death order.

Taro – the stocky, sour-faced guard – had suspected Naoto from the start and had detained him at the gate when he'd come back screaming about an escape. He'd gruffly apologized to Iruka about the 'questioning' before they'd left.

Luckily, Iruka was still doped on the antidote and couldn't muster the strength to deck the other man. He had managed to mutter 'fuck you' under his breath.

Kakashi'd chuckled, and Iruka'd grinned back at him.

He blamed that on the stupid drug as well.

The bruise on his cheek had faded, but the wounds still ached. Tsunade had given him a jar of salve this morning to dull the pain and help them heal, and as he ran his fingers over one of the fresher cuts, the skin numbed on contact.

Iruka wrenched his arm one way and then the other; he stretched his arm over his shoulder, and up his back, but no matter how he twisted, he just couldn't reach the spot directly between his shoulder blades. It was, unfortunately, where the highest concentration of wounds was located.

After several more minutes of struggling, he groaned and dropped his head. That spot really hurt.

"Can I help?"

Iruka whirled, almost slipping off the couch at the violent movement. "Kakashi-sensei! How…? Why..?"

"I wanted to see if you're okay, and through the door. You really should get better locks." Iruka's eyes darkened dangerously, and Kakashi held up his hands. "I just want to help. You got those wounds helping me; it's the least I can do."

Iruka thought about refusing, but his back just hurt too much. "Fine."

Kakashi took the offered salve and slowly lowered himself onto the couch. They sat in comfortable silence as he spread the ointment over Iruka's wounds. Underlying them all was a wide scar left over from what must have been a fairly deep wound, and Kakashi found himself tracing it with a thumb after he'd finished the treatment. "How'd you get this?"

"It's from saving some fool that I used to hate." Iruka smiled softly, his gaze focused far away, before turning to meet Kakashi look of utter confusion. "Naruto." He explained. "When he stole the scroll…."

"You couldn't think of a better way to stop it?"

"Oh, well, I'm sorry that I'm not quite as talented as you jounin…." The rest of Iruka's statement was muffled when Kakashi pulled his chin around and kissed him. Not a brief touch like the one at the cliff's edge had been – a subject that had not been broached since it occurred – but a more intense gesture intended to convey the things he couldn't possibly put into words.

Iruka pulled back eventually, his brows knitted together over dark eyes. "What's this?"

Kakashi huffed out a laugh. Apparently his non-verbal communication skills needed some dusting off. "Maa, you saved my life; I saved yours. We can't really hate each other anymore, can we?"

One of Iruka's eyebrows went up, "I think there's a fair bit more between hate and…that…" He trailed off blushing furiously.

Kakashi grinned wolfishly. He was working on the assumption that he would have either been hit or thrown out if Iruka was truly opposed to his actions and hoped that he wasn't completely off the mark. "Yes, there is. But, now that I've gotten over seeing you as an annoying, interfering prick…"

"That goes both ways, you know." Iruka interjected.

"Ma, so does that mean that you don't see me as an annoying, interfering prick anymore either?"

Iruka pulled his shirt back on. "Don't push your luck." As he pushed his head through, his hair tie tangled in the neck and pulled free. His hair tumbled down around his face and he snarled at it, digging his fingers into the back of his shirt in an attempt to find it. Kakashi's long fingers wound around his, halting his motion.

"Now that I've gotten over that and….well, given what you did for me. Iruka-sensei," He felt Iruka start under his hands at the proper honorific, "I know very few shinobi who would go that far for their friends, let alone someone they so actively disliked. I was…very wrong about you, and I…." Like so many times where he stood in front of the memorial stone and just stared silently at Obito's name, he couldn't find the right words to express his thoughts.

"That's an excuse for friendship, Kakashi-sensei." And he smiled, grateful that Iruka made his living understanding the unspoken words of his students – though most of those involved identifying the culprits in pranks.

"Maa, yes, but," He pushed Iruka's hair back from his face, tucking chocolate-colored strands behind his ear. "I can't stop thinking about how handsome you looked that night when you took your hair down." His smile stretched into a broad grin, "And you just really shouldn't think of your friends like that."

OOOOOOOOOO

End

OOOOOOOOOO

So, like the ending? Hate it? Thanks so much for reading and hanging in with my total lack of updates!


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